November 2011 Comic Book Sales to Comics Shops

Estimated Comics Shipped to North American Comics Shops
Based on Reports from Diamond Comic Distributors

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The DC relaunch continued to make a big splash in November, but the top-sellers list for the month includes several #1s from Marvel. Not a single issue in the Top 10 had an issue number above #3; when the list is heavy with debut and early issues of series, we generally get a strong month. And it was the best month of 2011, sales-wise — an increase of 19.44% on overall dollars and a jaw-dropping 31.19% in comics units over the same month in 2010, which had one less shipping week and wasn't a very strong month anyway.

Christmas was coming, as well, and so a significant help to the market this month came from the graphic novels and trade paperbacks, which rose 12.43%. Several hardcovers ranked highly in unit sales, and that usually means a good month dollar-wise.

DC remained on top in the market shares department in October, although the gap with Marvel narrowed greatly thanks to the aforementioned debuts, which included Avenging Spider-Man and a relaunch of Uncanny X-Men.

This list includes all items on Diamond's Top 300 charts, plus any post-#300 items from its Top 50 Indy and Small Publisher charts. If you don't see a book, Diamond released no data for it.
Items marked with asterisks [*] had their reported orders reduced by 10% due to returnability.
Distributor charts are regional commodity reports, not measures of a work's total reach. Read our FAQ.
The links lead to current listings for each item on eBay. You can also find the books at your comics shop.

Note: This category diverges slightly from Diamond's reported measures for all comics and graphic novels. Slight differences are introduced by the presence of magazines and other factors.

Average cost of comics in the Top 300:$3.46

Average cost of comics in the Top 300, weighted by orders:$3.47

Average cost of comics in the Top 25:$3.67

Median cost of comics in the Top 300:$2.99

Most common cost of comics in the Top 300:$2.99

MARKET SHARES

Share of Overall Units

DC

39.66%

Marvel

37.84%

Image

4.60%

IDW

3.65%

Dark Horse

3.47%

Dynamic Forces

3.20%

Boom

1.55%

Archie

0.91%

Avatar

0.55%

Zenescope

0.48%

Bongo

0.39%

Viz

0.39%

Random House

0.27%

Eaglemoss

0.17%

Hachette

0.14%

Fantagraphics

0.13%

Oni

0.12%

Digital Manga

0.07%

Drawn & Quarterly

0.04%

Publishers Group West

0.03%

Other

2.34%

Share of Overall Dollars

DC

34.69%

Marvel

33.30%

Image

5.36%

IDW

5.28%

Dark Horse

4.56%

Dynamic Forces

3.48%

Boom

1.64%

Viz

1.05%

Avatar

0.97%

Random House

0.96%

Archie

0.77%

Eaglemoss

0.64%

Fantagraphics

0.64%

Hachette

0.55%

Zenescope

0.43%

Bongo

0.33%

Publishers Group West

0.31%

Oni

0.25%

Digital Manga

0.22%

Drawn & Quarterly

0.20%

Other

4.35%

Items in Top 300

Marvel

90

DC

86

Image

25

IDW

22

Dynamic Forces

21

Dark Horse

19

Boom

9

Zenescope

6

Archie

5

Bongo

5

Avatar

4

Aspen

3

Abstract

1

Archaia

1

Big Dog

1

Broadsword

1

Cartoon

1

Share of Units in Top 300

DC

43.21%

Marvel

40.84%

Image

3.20%

Dark Horse

3.02%

IDW

2.97%

Dynamic Forces

2.97%

Boom

1.07%

Archie

0.73%

Zenescope

0.47%

Bongo

0.42%

Avatar

0.38%

Aspen

0.20%

Abstract

0.13%

Archaia

0.11%

Broadsword

0.10%

Cartoon

0.09%

Big Dog

0.07%

Share of Dollars in Top 300

Marvel

45.11%

DC

38.85%

IDW

3.41%

Dynamic Forces

3.19%

Image

2.99%

Dark Horse

2.90%

Boom

0.95%

Archie

0.63%

Avatar

0.44%

Zenescope

0.43%

Bongo

0.41%

Aspen

0.19%

Abstract

0.15%

Archaia

0.11%

Cartoon

0.09%

Broadsword

0.08%

Big Dog

0.07%

Dollar Share of Top 300 Comics & Top 300 TPBs

Marvel

39.70%

DC

38.17%

Image

4.73%

IDW

4.44%

Dark Horse

3.60%

Dynamic Forces

3.14%

Boom

0.84%

Random House

0.70%

Avatar

0.67%

Archie

0.54%

Viz

0.44%

Fantagraphics

0.41%

Zenescope

0.33%

Bongo

0.32%

Publishers Group West

0.27%

Hachette

0.24%

Aspen

0.15%

Archaia

0.12%

Abstract

0.11%

Digital Manga

0.08%

Sterling

0.08%

Oni

0.08%

Cartoon

0.07%

Top Shelf

0.07%

Drawn & Quarterly

0.06%

Broadsword

0.06%

Big Dog

0.06%

Eidolon Fine Arts

0.05%

Udon

0.05%

St. Martins

0.04%

Legendary

0.04%

Humanoids

0.04%

Bandai

0.03%

NBM

0.03%

Pocket

0.03%

801 Media

0.03%

Sofawolf

0.03%

Abrams

0.02%

Ape

0.02%

Gumby

0.02%

Slave Labor

0.02%

Perseus

0.02%

Moonstone

0.02%

215 Ink

0.01%

Lerner

0.01%

THE FINE PRINT

The monthly sales estimates at right are for items shipped by Diamond Comic Distributors, the largest comic-book distributor in North America.

Diamond does not publish sales figures; instead it publishes "indexed" sales tables, in which it keys orders for all comics it lists sales for to a single comic book (usually Batman), with one “order index point” being equal to 1% of that title’s orders.

Along with other methods, we use the actual Diamond final orders from titles to approximate what an order index point equals each month.The result is applied to the Diamond charts to produce the estimates seen at right.

The figures represent only those comics and graphic novels that Diamond shipped to North American retailers in the calendar month. While Diamond's sales represent the majority of periodicals in circulation, they are a smaller portion of the overall graphic novel market.

An item may appear in more than one month's charts due to reorders; for a better idea of a comic book's overall sales, look for its end-of-year sales in the Year Overview section, where available.

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